


Almost Perfect

by tunglo



Category: Almost Human
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 06:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12575724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunglo/pseuds/tunglo
Summary: Richard re-evaluates his feelings for his MX.





	Almost Perfect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NaughtyAnne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaughtyAnne/gifts).



Richard had known plenty of loss in his life. He had held his father’s hand as he slipped away, and watched on helpless as colleagues were gunned down in the line of duty. He had claimed it didn’t hurt, standing by as his ex-wife walked out, and pretended not to cry as they held a service for the family dog, back when he was a kid.

In all, it wasn’t as though he was a stranger to the concept of bereavement. And yet, when Kennex pulled his gun on his MX, the surge of icy fear threatened to floor him. The grief he felt, the heavy ache that clogged his throat and blurred his vision, was like nothing he had ever known.

Because until that moment he would have claimed that the MXs were little more than glorified personal computers. Useful, sure. Superior to Kennex’s outdated junk, naturally. But not something you mourned beyond the inconvenience its loss caused you.

He had been wrong. Completely and utterly wrong, because as he stood staring at the lifeless faces of the latest batch of MXs, all he could think about was that he had never taken the time to really study the face of his own partner. That he wouldn’t have been able to tell it apart from any of the others of its model, not in a line-up. Perhaps not anywhere.

They transferred all the data over - the case files and the personal observations - and Richard lay awake for a long time that first night, wondering if it would ever be enough. If it was like a regular job, where you could be given every scrap of information about a case another detective had been working, but you still hadn’t had the time to process it the way they had. You didn’t know the key players in the same way, or have that same attachment that made you desperate to close a case for the sake of the family.

His MX might not work with him in the same way. Might not know when to stay close and when to back off, without being told, and might never share a look with him over Kennex’ idiocy that Richard had long been sure meant they were capable of exasperation, if not any other emotion.

It hit him, back on duty, that he was watching the MX too intently. Following its every movement and waiting, he supposed, for some sign that it was the same as its predecessor. Or wasn’t. Whatever the case may be. Something tightened in his chest at that thought, and the MX tilted its head ever so slightly, and asked him if he was experiencing discomfort, and whether or not he wanted it to implement its first aid protocol.

He shook his head, hyper aware of Stahl listening in from a few desks away, and told himself to get a grip.

The MX was a synthetic. It had never felt any connection to him in the first place.

Except now he was paying attention, now he was actually looking, he couldn’t help but feel that the MX was more protective than it used to be. Argued the wisdom of his decision to press ahead of it at a dangerous scene, and it hovered a fraction too close whenever Kennex was in the vicinity. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Perhaps it was his insecurity and his wishful thinking.

Perhaps he was simply losing his mind.

He went home to visit his mother for a few days. Let her fuss over him, and ate her cooking, and finally answered her endless well meaning questions with,

“I’m fine. It’s just been a tough few weeks. I almost lost my partner.”

“I thought they were all synthetics now,” she said, frowning, and he could feel the flush staining his cheeks even as he tried to laugh off the slip-up.

It was the indignity of the thing, he told her. Yet another example of why Kennex’ contract ought to have been terminated, and more stress he could have done without. That seemed to placate her, at least for the time being, and that night Richard fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of his MX in the place of his very first partner, back when he had been a uniformed beat officer.

They had been good friends, had almost been so very much more, and in the morning he woke with a start, heart pounding because he couldn’t be the kind of guy who daydreamed about running off with a synthetic. He just couldn’t be.

It started happening just the same, until he couldn’t hold back any longer and started asking the MX questions. Ignored its logical explanations that its opinions on anything unrelated to the case they were working could be of no consequence, and told it that when they were in the car - when there was nothing else on and little else to do - he didn’t want to sit in silence.

From there it was a slippery slope, because he couldn’t keep alternating between ‘it’ and ‘he’ in his thoughts, and asked the MX what he would prefer. When that didn’t work he suggested that it simply pick, toss a figurative coin if it had to, and then got called up on it a few weeks later in a briefing with Maldonado, because he couldn’t go back to ‘it’ now, not even if wanted to.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he protested, tone sharp with the unease of discovery, “plenty of other people refer to them that way.”

“I never said there was,” Maldonado told him, too calm and too knowing, “I just didn’t expect it from you. That’s all.”

If that was the case maybe it wouldn’t hurt to go a step further. To ask that the MX choose a name for himself, because that was how the human mind worked, he told him, and because it would make his life easier. That was the primary purpose of the MX series, after all, to support the police in all things, so when he chose ‘Michael’ it could have been a completely random allocation, plucked from some database or other.

Richard liked to think there was more to it, and remembered a time they had attended a call out at a church in the old eastern district, and how Mike had asked him afterwards about the hymns the choir had been singing.

He brought it up, eventually, still groggy from another night of little sleep and a morning of too little coffee, and he watched the lights trail underneath Mike’s skin as he considered it.

“I had not encountered such a sound before,” Mike ventured, almost tentatively, and Richard wondered if it were real hesitance, or what the MX had determined he wanted to hear, based on a reading of his heart rate and previous experience.

If any of these quiet conversations they had meant anything. If he were simply imagining things that would never - and could never - be there.

It came to a head on Valentine’s Day, the precinct full of good cheer and tacky celebration. It was ridiculous, old fashioned, and it brought home his own depressing situation like nothing else could. Even Kennex had a date for the occasion, somehow. Even Rudy from the synth workshop - and the thought of the guy sat uncomfortably in his gut, because the shoe didn’t feel so good on the other foot.

Not now he was the one heading for accusations of being over interested in androids.

“What the hell is this?” He asked when he reached his own desk, not in the mood for pranks or jokes of any kind.

“I believe it is customary to gift love tokens on this calendar date,” Mike said, tone bland but there was still something there that made Richard stop and look at him. Really look at him.

He picked up the origami heart and ran his fingers over the precise lines of the folds. The almost mechanical perfection of thing.

“Come on,” he ordered, “this isn’t getting any work done.”

He put the heart in his jacket pocket, all the same, where nobody else could put their grubby hands on it. Took it home and placed it on his bedside table, and one day the following week got Mike to show him how he made it, under cover of passing time on a boring stakeout.

It took a while but he finally managed a passable approximation, and handed it over.

“Sorry it’s a little late,” he offered, gaze fixed on the car window until he forced himself to glance over.

The smile playing about the MX’s lips said everything.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


End file.
